Sperm 'can be kept for thousands of years'

The doctor who used a man's 21-year-old frozen sperm to help him become a father said it was possible to store sperm for thousands of years.

Sperm was frozen at -196C at St Mary's Hospital in Manchester and later thawed for use in fertility treatment. Today Mr Horne said it was technically possible to do this with sperm that had been stored for 6,000 years.

The revelation is set to reignite the debate about using sperm years after it was donated.

Mr Horne said although there were rules in place from the Human Fertility and Embryology Authority (HFEA) to prevent sperm being stored after the man reaches the age of 55, science is theoretically capable of producing a baby many years after both parents have died.

He said: "There has been research to suggest that sperm could survive for 5,000 or 6,000 years stored in liquid nitrogen. The only thing that would affect it would be background radiation and it would take that long to degrade it."

Some couples have fought court battles over using sperm to conceive children after the man has changed his mind. Diane Blood took her case through the courts to be allowed to use her dead husband's sperm to have two children.

In that case the HFEA could not allow the fertility treatment to be carried out in the UK because Mrs Blood's husband Stephen had not given consent. She was allowed to export the sample to a Brussels clinic where the successful treatment was carried out.

The HFEA rules state that normally sperm and eggs can only be stored for 10 years, after which special dispensation must be given to continue storage. The maximum cut-off point has been set for when the man reaches 55.

But science is outstripping the ethical debate and it is now possible to store sperm almost indefinitely.

In the recent case the father suffered testicular cancer in 1979 as a teenager. He was told chemotherapy and radiotherapy would save his life but would leave him sterile. He was given the option of freezing some sperm.

Later when he met and married his wife they talked to doctors about the possibility of starting a

family and went on a waiting list for NHS treatment.

After the third attempt his wife became pregnant and they now have a two-year-old son. They are said to be "over the moon".

But under government guidelines the set out by John Reid the baby would not have been born. The new guidelines say couples should be offered only one cycle of treatment on the NHS, if they had been trying for a baby for two years and were aged between 23 and 39.

Experts said earlier this year that couples, within the limits, should be given three free cycles of treatment to give them the best chance of having a child. But at St Mary's Hospital - the first NHS fertility centre in the country - certain couples have routinely been offered three cycles of treatment free.

Consultant Dr Elizabeth Pease said today: "If we had applied John Reid's rules this couple would not have had a child. From our point of view three attempts at IVF gives a realistic chance of conceiving."